


Alone

by PecanSandy, wallaby24



Category: Political RPF, Political RPF - UK 20th-21st c.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2019-07-14 05:32:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 17,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16034003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PecanSandy/pseuds/PecanSandy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/wallaby24/pseuds/wallaby24
Summary: Theresa finds her world turned upside down when Philip goes missing.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 100% fictional, no harm or threat intended, we love both the Mays

Distantly, Theresa heard the buzz of the alarm clock cutting through her sleep, and she felt Philip shift beside her, his arm tightening its grip around her waist, as he awakened, too.

“Good morning,” he whispered, kissing her forehead.

She groaned and nestled closer to him, trying to ignore the noise. She loved her work, and she would never cease to be awed at walking through the doors of No. 10, but she hated Monday mornings. After church, Sundays were almost always spent alone with her husband, cooking a big meal and cuddling on the couch and watching TV and making love, and rising early the next day to return to her office and not see Philip for a good ten hours was a harsh transition.

This weekend had been especially heavenly. She’d had to travel back to London late Saturday afternoon for an evening reception at Downing Street for Rosh Hashanah, and she’d returned late, sorry not to have spent the hours on the couch in Maidenhead with Philip. She’d wondered if he’d be in bed, but the lights had been on when she’d let herself in the front door, and she found him in the kitchen, standing over the stove, two rows of glistening chocolate-covered strawberries drying on the counter next to him.

“This took longer than I thought,” he said sheepishly, a half-dipped strawberry in his hand as he turned to greet her. There was a bowl of melted chocolate nested over a pot of boiling water on the stove, and he was quite clearly still in the midst of his project. “They were meant to be done and on a tray when you got home.”

“Are they…for me?” she asked, smiling but a bit confused at a gift she couldn’t consume more than one or two of.

“They’re sugar-free, love,” he said in response. “You can eat as many as you like…when they’re dry.”

She’d kissed him in thanks and gone upstairs to change her clothes…finding their bedroom lit with candles, their bathtub filled with bubbles, and both the tub and the bed sprinkled with red rose petals.

The evening had left her contemplating leaving Philip alone for a couple hours on Saturday nights more often.

“We should get up, sweetheart,” he said now, his nose still buried in her hair.

She murmured softly, lying still for another moment before pulling away and stretching to hit the snooze button. “Ten more minutes,” she whispered as she snuggled back against him. She wasn’t ready to give him up yet.

He chuckled as he wrapped her in his arms again. “Well, I won’t argue with that.”

Theresa closed her eyes and tried to pretend that it was still Sunday night, and she had another eight hours to lie next to him. Or even better: Sunday afternoon. After a rather late night on Saturday, they’d come home from Sunday morning services, she’d popped a roast into the oven, and they’d snuggled up together on the couch for a long nap, tucked in each other’s arms.

Theresa felt Philip’s hand rub up and down her arm now, and she sighed. “You’re so warm,” she whispered. He kissed the top of her head.

She hated leaving his warmth nearly as much as she hated leaving his embrace. Cold-blooded by nature, she’d been infinitely chillier in the years since her diabetes and its accompanying weight loss, and the only time she was ever truly warm was when she was in bed with her husband. Philip seemed to her to radiate heat, and to be held in his arms under the covers, while she tucked her perpetually-freezing feet between his, was absolute heaven.

The alarm beeped again…had it been ten minutes? “I just hit that thing,” she said, blinking her eyes open and trying to make sense of the time.

“You went back to sleep,” he said softly, stroking her arm. “But we should get up now.”

She murmured as Philip kissed the tip of her nose, and then sighed with regret as he sat up, taking his warmth with him. The cool air hit her as she pushed the covers off and got up herself.

“You know,” Philip said, smiling at her wrinkled nose, “I don’t mind climbing back in bed with you again tonight.”


	2. Chapter 2

There was a vague, niggling sense in the pit of Theresa’s stomach that something was not quite right as her eyes skimmed over the briefing for tomorrow’s Defence Committee meeting late on Monday afternoon, as though her body knew something that her mind had not yet grasped. The _ding_ of an email hitting her phone pulled her out of the report, and when she reached for the device, a quick glance at the time on the lock screen told her what it was: it was 6:30, and Philip was not home yet.

Odd, but no matter. He rarely returned to No. 10 later than six, but perhaps he’d been in a meeting that had run late. Or perhaps he’d stopped for an errand. She saw that the email was from Boris Johnson, sighed, and put her phone back down, not in the mood for hijinks this late in the day. She returned her attention to the paperwork.

She was two sentences in when her phone buzzed with a call, and she glanced at it again. Philip’s driver. Ah, perhaps this would explain his delay.

“Hello?”

“Prime Minister?”

“Yes?”

“Were you expecting Mr. May’s departure from his office to be delayed this evening?”

“Well, no, but that’s quite all right. When should I expect him?”

“That’s just the thing, ma’am. He hasn’t left the building, and I’ve not been able to reach him. I thought perhaps there’d been a miscommunication, and he’d gone elsewhere or intended to be very late tonight.”

Strange. Very strange, she had to admit. Philip was reliable, and he was unfailingly courteous to the staff. She could not imagine him simply leaving his driver to sit outside his office for nearly an hour without sending word. He also always sent Theresa herself a sweet message when he was going to be late, usually telling her how much he already missed her. A flutter of nervousness brushed across her chest, but she tried to ignore it. Nothing was wrong. Philip probably had his head down in a project and had lost track of time, his phone accidentally switched to silent. That was far likelier than anything else.

“No, there’s been no miscommunication, I don’t think,” she said aloud. “He’s still at work, I imagine. Please just wait there for him.”

“Of course, ma’am.”

Of course he was still at work, she told herself as she hung up. Of course he was.

The truth was that Theresa worried about Philip terribly. She’d fretted over him for decades, the loss of both her parents in the span of a few months at age twenty-five leaving her with an acute case of separation anxiety that manifested itself in an absolute terror at any unexpected absence of her husband’s, envisioning him dead on a street corner. They’d worked through it together, Philip lovingly and patiently talking her down from the ledge and calmly answering worried phone call after worried phone call on nights when he worked late.

She’d moved past that stage, of course, but she’d always had a quiet dread that something would happen to him, for she wasn’t quite sure how she’d face the world without him. And when she’d become prime minister, her fears had multiplied tenfold. Because now Philip needed security. A bodyguard.

She knew that ought to be a comfort, knew he was far safer in the backseat of the prime ministerial armored car than he had ever been on the Tube or driving himself, knew she should be grateful that a trained guard was protecting him. But it only frightened her more, pointing out that he was under threat, that the danger was real and not a figment of her imagination. That she was the one who had put him in danger.

Theresa texted Philip a casual, “Will you be home soon?”, not really expecting an answer. That fit her theory of his dead or silenced phone, anyway, so she refused to let herself be alarmed when she didn’t get one. She then spent an uncomfortable half hour trying to focus on her briefing before snatching up her phone again and texting the driver, hoping he wouldn’t answer, either, thus suggesting he was en route, her husband safely ensconced in the backseat.

She bit her lip when her phone _dinged_ back almost immediately. “No, there’s still no sign of him,” the screen read.

This was ridiculous. It was almost 7:00. She could call his office’s main number, but she doubted anyone else would be there. He himself probably wasn’t there, she realized, her stomach muscles turning to bricks. She called Philip’s office line and then his mobile again, praying desperately that he would pick up.

When he didn’t, she called downstairs to security.

\-----

“The last anyone seems to have seen of Philip was around 10 this morning.” James Bateman, head of the prime minister’s security, had been in and out of her office for the past hour, updating her on conversations with Scotland Yard and MI5.

Theresa didn’t mind this, not really. Something about James’s presence, with his reminders of the national bodies that were now involved, made the situation seem rather ridiculous. Surely she had not involved a national intelligence agency because her husband had been late getting home from work. She and Philip would laugh about this later, about how her paranoia of the early years of their marriage had resurfaced now that she had MI5 at her fingertips. Because of course Philip would come home. It hadn’t _really_ been necessary to call James.

“Yes, you mentioned that,” she said. It had been established that Philip had stepped out of his office for a mid-morning trip to Starbucks, but no one could remember his return, nor had they seen him in the office that afternoon. It had not been so very long after he had kissed her goodbye when the driver had dropped her at No. 10: their habit on Mondays was to ride in from Maidenhead together, and when she was dropped at Downing Street, Philip always insisted on getting out of the car to give her a proper kiss on the cheek.

“We’ve pulled some security footage of him walking,” James added, pulling her out of the sweet memory. She nodded. New information. “But of course the cameras don’t cover every bit of pavement, and we last see him at the Lothbury intersection. By the time the footage outside of the Bank Tube station picks up, Philip seems to have fallen off the map.”

“You’re sure?” A stupid question, she knew. Obviously, Philip _had_ disappeared at some point. He had likely never made it to Starbucks—at least, his credit card had not been used there.

“As sure as we can be, Theresa. He doesn’t seem to have passed the station.” James paused. “This is an awkward question, but it must be asked…has everything been all right at home lately?”

Theresa bristled. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t mean anything at all—”

“Philip would never be involved with anyone else! Neither of us would. We’re not like that! We love each other.”

“Of course you do,” James said, his voice infuriatingly calm. “I was wondering, though, if perhaps Philip might have found the pressures of Downing Street difficult to handle, and…”

Theresa felt her blood growing hot as her security head trailed off. These people thought Philip had just snuck away, abandoned her without a word, _left_ her.

“Philip would never leave me,” she said hotly. “ _Never._ He’d _never_ leave me. We… _we’re not like that_.”

And it was then that she knew something was wrong, knew she couldn’t deny it any longer. Philip would not simply disappear without telling her why he’d be late. He wouldn’t spend an evening wandering London for God knows what reason—even if it were a very good reason—without so much as a call or a text. He’d know she was worried, know she was looking for him. Philip wouldn’t do any of this, and the only plausible answer for it was that something awful had happened to Philip.

“Please,” she said, panic suddenly sweeping over her. “Please, you have to find my husband!” She reached across her desk for James’s hands but let go almost immediately when her mobile dinged. Seized by a wild hope that Philip had made contact, she snatched it up, only to see a text from a number she didn’t recognize.

_Miss him yet?_ the screen read, accompanied by a laughing emoji. Before she could react enough to tell James, a photo popped onto her screen: a very pale Philip, tied to a folding chair and blindfolded.


	3. Chapter 3

Philip blinked his eyes open, a groggy stupor still clinging to him as he surveyed the small, darkened, concrete room around him. Was this some sort of…closet? His eyes closed again. Why did his head hurt? There was a dull throbbing in the back of his skull, and there was a sharp ache between his shoulder blades, too. He opened his eyes for another look at his surroundings.

Was he…dreaming? He tried to stand, which immediately snapped him out of his confusion: he couldn’t stand. There were bands of thick plastic around his midsection, tying him to the hard metal chair he was sitting in; more bands around his wrists, which had been tied together behind his back; and further bands tying his legs to the chair legs.

The horror of his situation swept over him, ice replacing his blood. He remembered with clarity now: he had been on his way to get a cup of coffee when a hand had suddenly grabbed his arm and yanked him between buildings. Something had hit him hard in the back of the head, and…that had been it. Until he’d awakened here. Wherever here was.

_But what about Theresa?_

She had not been with him at the time, of course. She should have been safe in her office at No. 10 at that point, and he struggled to remember her schedule for the rest of the day. Was it even still day? Yes, a turn of his head confirmed that the dim light in the closet was coming from a small window high on the wall behind him—a set up that also implied this was a basement level.

Theresa, he decided, had been meant to remain at Downing Street until late in the afternoon, when she was due in the House. Was it late afternoon yet? And what difference did that make? He had not been convinced of the safety of her office or their flat ever since they’d been briefed on the assassination plot that had been detected and foiled—the plot to bomb Downing Street and draw out the prime minister, who would be kidnapped from there. This had been averted not because No. 10 had flawless security, but because intelligence services had picked up the chatter.

But had something like that happened today? Had he himself been taken only minutes before an attack along Whitehall? A drop of sweat trickled down his neck as he realized how likely this was: he didn’t know why _he_ had been taken, but Theresa was always under far more threat than he was, so surely she had been kidnapped as well.

Had they hurt her? Of course they’d hurt her, even if it had just been the same blow to the head that he had received. Yet at Downing Street there had surely been more of a struggle, and Theresa could have easily been hurt worse. He felt slightly nauseous as he considered how slowly her body healed with Type 1. What exactly might have happened to her?

What if she hadn’t just been hurt, but also…oh God, not _that_. His heart felt as though it was being clenched in a vise at the thought, and for a moment he could not quite catch his breath. Because if this were some sort of ISIS operation, he knew exactly what a group of terrorists would want to do with a woman leader after they’d captured her.

_Please, no,_ he prayed, and then a more mundane—but even more horrifying—thought occurred to him: wouldn’t it have been easy for a kidnapper, any kidnapper, who was too rough with her to have jostled her insulin pump, accidentally unhooking it? He could feel a few bruises on his own body, he supposed from being tossed into a getaway vehicle, and her pump was not hard to dislodge. Removing it was a matter of care, not of force, he thought, his fingertips twitching at the memories engrained in them. He had unhooked it himself in so many intimate moments, gently undressing her as he covered her body with kisses.

Theresa would be very, very sick if her pump were left off for several hours—and how long ago had they been brought here? Even if it were still secure, it needed to be refilled and reattached tomorrow. The pump wouldn’t work infinitely. And if Theresa got no insulin for a few days straight…

Philip’s terror at these thoughts was such that he could barely breathe properly, and when at last the handle on the door began to turn, his first thought was to beg that Theresa’s insulin be dealt with.

“Please!” he burst out as the door opened. “My wife! She needs to have access to insulin!”

The man who had opened it was young, less than 35, Philip believed, with a sturdy, muscular build—likely the person who had attacked him that morning. He took no notice of Philip’s outburst and merely called back down the hallway behind him, “He’s awake, Jess!”

“Yeah?” a woman’s voice called back.

Philip was dimly aware of what this meant: if his captors had no fear of making noise, he himself would not be easily heard and discovered by rescuers. Yet this was not his central concern.

“My wife!” he said again. “She needs insulin; she’ll die without it—”

The young man narrowed his eyes. “I know you’ve had a blow to the head, mate, but the whole bloody country knows Theresa May has diabetes.”

“Please,” Philip begged, his voice straining, “you’ll need to get some for her somehow, _please_. Or let her go—do whatever you want with me, but _please_ don’t let anything happen to her, _please_ —”

“Shut up, man. Jess, what do you want me to do with him?”

“Oh, just leave him for now!”

“Please,” Philip tried again, “ _please_. You can have anything—we’ve got money; I’ll give you every last drop, but you’ve _got_ to make sure she’s getting insulin—”

Suddenly, the man’s fist connected with his jaw, and he could immediately taste blood. He held back a cry as the man leaned down and grabbed his face roughly, making him immediately feel the cuts the punch had left on the inside of his cheeks.

“God, would you shut _up_ about Theresa? We don’t have her. We don’t _need_ her. The best way to hurt her is to hurt _you_.”

And with that, the door was slammed and locked, and Philip was alone again.


	4. Chapter 4

Theresa was in bed, curled up in a tight ball, not sleeping. She meant to be sleeping—she was no use to the investigation if she stayed up all night, no use to Philip. And so she’d tried to calm herself before she lay down, tried to distract herself with the lengthy reports in her red box, tried to still the tears that had repeatedly swept over her throughout the evening. She’d nearly succeeded, too, and had climbed into bed with dry eyes.

Until, of course, she’d lain down on her left side, facing Philip’s pillow. Theresa always settled into bed this way: if Philip had gone before her and already fallen asleep, she’d fit herself carefully against his body, wanting warmth and comfort but not wanting to wake him; if they’d gotten in bed together, she’d snuggle close, her head often resting on his chest as he wrapped his arm around her. She didn’t think she’d ever slept alone in their bed at No. 10: she traveled for work, but Philip didn’t, and he’d refused to move to the guest room for a more peaceful night’s sleep the handful of times she’d been ill. Nor could she recall any occasion where she’d gone to bed before Philip, and she could not trick her body into believing his absence tonight was normal.

Her tears began to flow as she pulled the covers up to her chin, aware immediately of what a poor substitute they were for his arms. She’d then made the terrible decision to reach for his pillow, breathing in his soft scent, and she’d broken entirely. A fresh round of sobs rising in her chest, she hugged the pillow tightly, letting the hint of cedar in his soap sweep over her. What if he didn’t come home? What if this were merely the first of thousands of nights alone?

She’d tried all evening to tell herself that her husband would be found. Half of MI5 was out looking for him: he would be better searched for than any missing person in the country. He hadn’t been gone very long, the kidnappers had already made contact with her once from a burner phone, and Philip’s odds, or so she’d been told, were still very good. But no assurances from her security services could erase the text message she’d received several hours earlier: _No, you won’t see him again. But he’s alive now…and this is all going to hurt._

What were they doing to him? She sobbed even harder as her mind shifted from her fears of his death to her fears for his injuries. Because whoever had him was most definitely hurting him, and she had no idea how badly.

_Please,_ she’d texted back, _please don’t hurt him! Tell me what you want. Anything._ And she truly believed she’d have handed over the nuclear codes. But—perhaps fortunately for the U.K.—there had been no ransom demand. All she’d received back was another laughing emoji that had made her nauseous. These were people who would not only hurt her precious husband; they would enjoy it.

_Philip._ Her sweet Philip was in the hands of a sick psychopath, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Over the sound of her own sobs, Theresa heard the quiet _ding_ of her mobile, and she rolled over to her bedside table, hoping desperately for news—or even another text from the kidnappers that might help the agents.

It was neither, of course, and she angrily swiped an email from the chancellor away. Almost without conscious thought, her fingers then opened her texting thread with Philip, and she scrolled greedily through their conversation history.

Had she ever told him how nice it was to get so many texts just telling her he loved her? She hadn’t—she didn’t think she’d ever even thought about how often he did this, but it was easily half their thread. _I love you, I love you, You make me so proud, I adore you, You looked beautiful on TV this morning_ …Philip’s sweet pronouncements went on and on as she scrolled, interspersed with all his promises to run her a hot bath when she got home, or fix dinner, or rub her feet after a long day in heels. She had never, she was sure, loved him enough, and it only made her cry harder.

He’d always been like that, she thought, as her mind whirled back to their early months together in the 70s: his sweet first declaration of love after a Christmas party, how quickly he’d begun to call her sweetheart, how loving he had been when she’d told him about her mother, how gentle he’d been the night he’d found her sick on her couch. And now…

She was going to make herself ill with her sobs, and she certainly wasn’t going to sleep. She tried and failed to still them, reminded suddenly that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried alone. Philip was always there, always holding her, always comforting her, and this realization didn’t help.

What would Philip do? What _did_ Philip usually do? Usually a glass of water after they’d cuddled, and she got out of bed—shivering, for she’d already been cool without him lying next to her—and moved to the bathroom, where she filled a tumbler with water. Gasping and choking, she managed to swallow it, and it did calm her slightly as she fought to hold her memories at bay.

Tea. She should make herself a pot of tea as well, and she headed down to the kitchen with a slightly lightheaded feeling, but trying to force deep breaths around her slowing sobs. Tea would help.

There was water in the kettle already, so she turned on the burner underneath it and reached for the everyday teapot. It clattered against the counter as she took hold of it, and she realized it was because her hand was shaking. Tightening her grip, she slid it closer to her and then turned to the tea tin, scooping out a pot’s worth of leaves, half of which she promptly spilled.

_It’s only tea; you’ve made it your whole life,_ she told herself as she felt her breathing go shaky again. This shouldn’t be so difficult.

She clasped her hands together, trying to still them as she waited for the water to boil, trying not to think of Philip, trying to focus on nothing but the prospect of a hot cuppa.

At last the kettle screeched, and she carefully and steadily managed to fill the teapot, but her thoughts were turning to Philip again. Tea in the evenings almost always meant he was nearby, either making it for her or drinking it with her, and another sob climbed into her throat. The teapot’s lid slipped from her shaking hand as she tried to cover the pot and clattered to the counter.

Had she broken it? No, but there _was_ a prominent chip on the side where it had fallen, and her tears began to overtake her again: not for the lid, but for the memory it evoked. A few days after last summer’s disastrous election, she had been alone in the kitchen and dropped a full cup of tea to the floor, where it shattered. She’d been, at the time, perpetually on the verge of tears, hating herself and sure everyone else in England did, too, and as she’d knelt to mop up the tea, she’d burst into exhausted sobs at her own clumsiness. At the mess she seemed to make of everything she touched.

Philip, who she hadn’t even thought was within hearing distance, had been at her side almost instantly, sitting down on the floor next to her and drawing her into his arms with kisses and caresses.

“I r-ruin _everything_ ,” she had sobbed.

“Anyone,” he had said fiercely with a kiss to her head, “might have a broken teacup.” But of course she knew they weren’t talking about teacups at all.

He’d held her and rocked her until her sobs had eased and her tears had slowed, and then she’d wiped her eyes and raised her head from his shoulder. “I should clean this mess up,” she’d whispered, surveying the puddle and the shards of china.

Philip had kissed her again. “You won’t have to do it alone.”

Alone, of course, was what she now was, and she cried some more as the tea steeped and as she poured some into a cup, spilling almost as much onto the counter. The hot drink did soothe her—she’d learned at a very young age that it was impossible to sob and drink tea at the same time—but once it was gone, she knew exactly what she needed. What she had needed all evening.

Abandoning the pot and the cup, she moved to the sitting room in search of her Bible, but she ended up taking Philip’s off the shelf instead on impulse, wanting to feel close to him. It was the same Bible he had had when they’d met, though it was now far more worn with decades of use. She remembered, suddenly, with another sniff, how her heart had sung when she’d brought him to church with her on a visit home to Wheatley and seen him open this Bible to reveal copious margin notes.

The memory, though, also gave her comfort. She knew Philip’s faith would sustain him and comfort him, wherever he was, and she said a silent prayer for his strength.

Clutching her husband’s Bible, Theresa went back upstairs and climbed back into bed, flicking on a bedside lamp so she could read. Opening near the middle, she found her way into the Psalms, reading snatches of verses here and there as she paged through to the 121st.

“My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth,” she read silently. “He will not allow your foot to be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve you from all evil; he shall preserve your soul. The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth, and even forevermore.”

They were words that had long been comforting for her, words she had read as a teenager worried about a future without her mother, as a newlywed grieving both her parents, as a young woman desperate for babies, and as a prime minister stressed over a thousand possibilities. It had always been immensely soothing to be reminded that she was watched over constantly, that she would be protected and guarded by the God of the universe, that she was never left alone…and that her God never slept or grew tired or let His care and attention wane. And it was the same for Philip: he was not alone tonight, and he would not be alone.

She was saying a silent prayer that her husband would remember this, and that he would be protected and watched over, when her eyes fell on one of the notes Philip had scribbled in the margin. In faded ink, he had written, “He is awake with T in the night.”

Her tears burst forth again at the memory of the times he’d held her in the middle of the night, waking up with her and comforting her as she’d struggled with crippling cramps or grieved for her parents or wept for a lost baby. There had been a great many hard, long nights in her younger years, and the memory came to her suddenly of Philip whispering in her ear that God was awake.

__“Please,” she begged, hugging his Bible to her chest, “ _please___ send him home.”


	5. Chapter 5

Theresa awoke with a gasp, gulping for air after her nightmare. She’d been searching a maze of darkened, empty hallways for Philip in a building that must have been burning, for she could smell the smoke and hear the crackle of the flames, but he hadn’t answered her increasingly urgent cries.

_It was only a dream,_ she tried to tell herself, but that wasn’t very comforting when the reality was that Philip _was_ in danger and she had no way to find him. Still breathing hard, she reached for the phone on her nightstand: she knew it was a text that had awakened her.

And there it was: the same number that had texted her yesterday, taunting her with threats to Philip. Her hands shaking, she opened the text, frightened of its contents but desperate for news.

All it was, was a lengthy web link. Had this even been meant for her? Would there be information MI5 could trace?

Theresa tossed the covers aside and leapt out of bed, dashing through the flat and downstairs to the security room, which she knew had been set up as a command central for the investigation.

“I’ve had another text!” she exclaimed as she burst into the room, and her phone was snatched from her hand before she could say any more. “It’s—they just sent that link—I thought it might—”

“Do you recognize this address, Prime Minister?” the agent who was studying her phone asked.

“No, I barely looked at it…I wondered if it might have been accidentally sent, if it might tell you something…”

She was largely ignored as her phone was passed around and agents began keying the link into various computers. Suddenly, the large screen on the wall, which had previously showed a map of London, flipped to an image of Philip, still in the chair she’d seen earlier. Smaller computer screens around the room came to life with the same image, and her stomach tensed. Was this image at the other end of the link?

“It’s a livestream, Prime Minister,” the agent nearest her said quietly, just as she realized Philip wasn’t a stationary image this time. “You might prefer—”

“I’m not leaving,” she said sharply. The sight of Philip, still bound and blindfolded, made her hair stand on end, but she wasn’t going to turn away from him. His face was downcast, and she wasn’t entirely sure if he was awake or conscious, but she didn’t have much time to think about it before another man walked in view of the camera, his face covered with a black ski mask.

“Hello, Theresa. Can I call you Theresa?” the man said, waving dramatically at the camera. “Anyway, I hope you’re feeling well, getting enough sleep.”

At the sound of her name, Philip stirred, turning his head from left to right and struggling against his restraints. She felt sick as she suddenly realized how swollen his lips were, with a matching bruise on his chin. He’d clearly been hit at least once.

“Theresa! Sweetheart!” he shouted. It echoed in the empty room before he spoke again. “Where is she? You can’t—” A loud smack interrupted him, and she heard him groan slightly. Theresa gasped and felt her knees weaken at the sight of the man backhanding Philip across the face. The man shook his hand slightly and turned back to face the camera.

“He talks too much.” He circled behind Philip’s chair and stopped sharply. “He’s bitched about you since be got here—like he’s more worried about you than anything else.” The man began to circle around to the front again, his shoes clicking harshly on the concrete floors. “He really should be more worried about himself.”

He looked up at the camera for another moment before turning, rearing back, and kicking Philip squarely in the chest, causing his chair to fall backwards onto the floor.

“No!” Theresa exclaimed, running to the larger screen. His wrists were bound behind his back, and as his chair clattered to the ground, she heard him cry out in pain. “His arms,” she whispered through tears. She reached out in vain for him, as she watched the man step over Philip’s overturned chair.

“Theresa can’t help you, but she can hear you… and see you. Anything you want to say?” the man said, leaning down close to Philip’s face.

“Dove, it’s going to be all right,” she heard Philip say. “Don’t be scared. I love you. I prom—” Another loud smack across Philip’s face, and Theresa let out a guttural sob.

“That’s enough,” the man said, lingering over him for another moment before standing upright.

“Ma’am.” She jumped as one of the female security officers placed a tentative hand on her shoulder. “You don’t need to…”

“I’m not leaving!” she shouted, refusing to turn away from the screen. She was vaguely aware of the murmurings of officers around her, but she couldn’t focus on anything but the sight of her husband, lying on the floor at the mercy of this maniac. Both times he spoke, he’d spoken to her. He didn’t beg to be spared, for them not to hurt him. He asked about her and told her he loved her. She could feel herself shaking.

“I hope this hurts you, Prime Minister. You’ve earned it.”

The man reared back and kicked Philip in the side. Her vision blurred, and she reached for a nearby chair to steady herself. She heard a few security officers gasp as the man kicked him again and again. She could hear Philip struggling to breathe between blows to his abdomen, gasping loudly for air.

“He can’t breathe,” she choked out, looking desperately around the room and back at the screen. “Please… make…make it stop. He can’t breathe!”

It seemed like it went on forever, but when the man stopped at last, Theresa had sunk to her knees, looking up at the video and sobbing so hard her whole body shook. Philip coughed and choked for breath and let out a loud groan through gritted teeth. She thought it was over—surely Philip thought it was over—when suddenly, the man raised his boot again and stomped hard on Philip’s right arm. He cried out, and Theresa shrieked too, sure she’d just seen his arm break.

“Can’t leave you on the floor, can we?” the man said before yanking Philip up by his injured arm and swinging him around slightly. He didn’t protest or signal that he was in pain, and when the chair was slammed down, upright at last, his head fell forward in an unconscious slump.

And just like that, the feed went black.


	6. Chapter 6

_“No!”_ Theresa screamed. _“Philip!”_ The room seemed to be shrinking around her, and there wasn’t enough air. She gasped for breath amidst her sobs, but she wasn’t sure she cared whether she could breathe. _“Philip!”_ she screamed, and then she screamed again, with no words this time.

Her stomach heaved with her violent sobs, and then, with barely any warning at all, she felt bile rising in her throat, and she pitched forward, vomiting onto the floor. She was dimly aware that she ought to control herself, ought to be embarrassed—she was the Prime Minister, and these were her agents! But she couldn’t think of anything but _Philip._

She felt a firm hand on her back and another beneath her elbow, supporting her. “Theresa.” A woman’s voice cut through the haze, and she recognized it as Melissa, one of the female agents. “Theresa, you need to go back upstairs.”

It had become habit to listen to her agents, especially to instructions delivered in that calm-in-a-crisis tone, and she let herself be helped to her feet, led from the room, and half-carried back up the stairs to her flat.

She was still sobbing when she stepped aimlessly inside, the hallway swirling around her, her knees weakening. _Philip…_

“You need to sit down on the couch,” she heard Melissa say, her voice firm. “And then you need a glass of water.”

What she needed was to get to _Philip_ , but she let herself be guided to the sofa, where she sank down onto the cushions.

“Oh _Philip_ ,” she whispered through her tears as Melissa moved toward the kitchen. “Philip!” How badly was he hurt? He needed a doctor, immediately, and she felt herself begin to tremble again at the thought of him sitting alone and unconscious, tied to that hard chair. Was any of the damage permanent? Could he die of his injuries? Was he already bleeding out internally?

Theresa wanted to raise her legs onto the couch as well and curl up like an infant, but the knowledge that she was not alone prevented it. Instead, she curled forward over her knees, bent double with the force of her sobs. Oh, how she needed to be with Philip!

“Drink this.” Melissa was back with a glass of water. “You need to catch your breath, or you’ll be sick again.”

Her hand shaking, Theresa accepted it and tried to force down a gulp of the water. “Slowly,” Melissa said, as she fought to keep from choking.

“I’m just—so _afraid_. He’s–he’s hurt. I’m afraid he’s hurt r–really badly…”

“I know that wasn’t easy to watch, Theresa, but from what I saw, I don’t think Philip is likely to be seriously injured. Broken bones, yes, but nothing that won’t heal.”

“But—all the kicking—couldn’t his organs—internally—”

“I don’t think there’s serious internal bleeding. We would have seen him spitting blood, and we didn’t.”

“There wouldn’t…there won’t be internal damage?” She could not quite believe it after the violence she’d seen.

“Not that won’t heal, I don’t think. Bruising, maybe a broken rib, but it’s not life-threatening. Not when there was no evidence of blood in his airways.”

“Then why—why did he pass out?”

Melissa hesitated. “Pain, probably. And shock.”

“Because he really is hurt.” A sob swallowed her last word.

“But he can recover, Theresa. I think we need to focus on that.”

“He needs—he needs a doctor—”

“MI5 is going to do everything possible to find your husband, Theresa. I firmly believe they’re going to find him, and he’ll get medical attention immediately.”

“I just wish I could take care of him. He really n-needs me right now, and I’m not taking c-care of him,” she sobbed. That was the worst of it: she had an overwhelming desire to race out into London and start banging on doors, demanding to be let in to search for Philip. Because he needed her, desperately, and all she was doing was sitting on the couch in her pajamas. She would have given her right arm to be able to rush to him and see to his injuries. “He _needs_ me!”

To her surprise, Melissa said nothing and merely hugged her. She’d never been embraced by one of her bodyguards before, but it felt good to have someone to hold onto, and she let her head rest on the agent’s shoulder for a moment.

“I just want—I want him to be _okay_.” And he wasn’t, she knew as she cried. He wasn’t at all.

\-----

_Why?_ Theresa thought again. _Why?_ Why had they taken Philip? Why were they hurting him?

It was, in a stomach-twisting way, partly her fault. She’d been assured, of course, that these people were sociopaths, that they weren’t rational, that for her to blame any of her policies was no saner than negotiating with a terrorist. She hadn’t done something, or decided something, or said something that had caused her husband to be hurt; he’d been hurt because he’d been attacked by someone evil.

She knew all that. She understood all that. But the horrifying truth of the matter was that if she wasn’t prime minister, if she’d stayed in the City, if she’d even been an MP but remained on the backbenches, Philip would be sleeping peacefully beside her. It was her status—combined with some unknown act on her part—that had put him in danger.

Theresa drew in another shuddering breath, her pillow wet with her tears. Melissa had left an hour ago and she had gone back to bed, knowing full well she wouldn’t sleep. She didn’t know how she’d ever sleep again. It didn’t really seem right to sleep—it didn’t even seem right to lie comfortably in bed with the covers over her. She had no right to be so comfortable, not when Philip was suffering so horribly.

He was surely awake by now—she doubted he would have stayed unconscious for very long. The thought of his pain made her nearly nauseous. His arm alone…she’d had a broken arm before, acquired in an overly competitive cricket game with nieces and nephews, and it had hurt like hell in the beginning, especially before she’d had it set. And Philip didn’t have so much as an aspirin. To say nothing of the blows to his side…how many broken ribs did he have???

She wanted to hold him so badly that she ached, wanted to let him lay his head in her lap, wanted to hold his hand, wanted to stroke his hair.

When she closed her eyes, she felt _his_ arms around _her_ offering comfort, trying to protect and soothe her. That was what Philip always did, always had done. Some of her earliest memories of their relationship were the times in Oxford when he’d taken care of her when she’d had her horrible cramps—there had even been the occasion a year later when he’d rushed to London for what had turned out to be a ruptured cyst. She could still feel the soft kisses he’d given her right before her emergency surgery, still sense the warmth of his chest as he’d carried her downstairs and held her close in the back of the cab. “I just want you to be okay,” he’d said, almost tearfully, as he’d worked to convince her to go to A &E that night. She knew now exactly what he’d meant and what he’d felt: all she wanted now was for him to be okay.

How many times in the first two decades of their marriage had Philip nursed her through her monthly nightmare? How many times had he sat and stroked her hair, or rubbed her back, or snuggled up with her and held her hot water bottle in place?

And then there were all her recent memories. She’d been sicker than she liked to admit several years earlier before she’d finally gotten her Type I diagnosis, her body struggling without the insulin she didn’t know she needed. She’d caught the flu that fall, and her weakened immune system hadn’t been able to fight off the virus for good for weeks on end. And Philip…Philip had been wonderful. Another sob forced through her throat as she remembered how he would scoop her up from the bathroom floor and carry her back to their bed, where he would draw the covers over them both and snuggle her close, his body heat easing her shivering.

To say nothing of how well he took care of her every day: he was the one she could always count on to be on her side, the arms that she knew would hold her at the end of a long day, the face that would always have a smile when she was at her most stressed. The man who had told her how much he loved her and how proud he was in the midst of her worst disasters as prime minister.

Now he needed her. And there was nothing she could do for him.


	7. Chapter 7

_I love you, and I love our nights in more than anywhere we ever go. I love just being able to hold you._

Theresa wasn’t sure how long she’d been sitting and clutching the sticky note, but her tears had gone on long enough for her breathing to be ragged and her throat to be sore. She brushed her fingers over Philip’s angular, elegant swirls for the hundredth time, another sob bursting from her chest.

It was Tuesday evening, and Philip had now been missing for almost thirty-six hours. She’d heard statistics before about missing children and the first twenty-four hours; she didn’t know if they applied to missing adults or to politically-motivated kidnappings, but regardless, she couldn’t imagine that passing a full day and a half was a good sign. In an effort to distract herself and to tune out the blaring silence in their flat, Theresa had reached for her red box and begun to go through the papers. She couldn’t concentrate on anything she needed to read and form an opinion on, but there was always a pile marked for simple signatures, and she had been steadily working through these documents, scribbling _Theresa May_ across the bottom of each.

However, Philip had made a habit of slipping little love notes into her red box for her to come across later, and she had stumbled on one. She guessed it had been written on Sunday, after a romantic Saturday evening of snuggles and sex. The day before he’d disappeared.

She was trying to imagine the world as it had been Sunday, a world where Philip had been free to write her love notes, a world where her husband had had no greater concern than getting into her red box when she wasn’t looking. A world where they had taken for granted that they had many more nights to hold each other. A world where she would have found this note, smiled, and kept on working.

A world where the mundane was not precious.

How could they have said goodbye yesterday morning? How could she have climbed out of bed with him? How could she have turned away after he’d kissed her cheek, strolling into Downing Street without a single glance back?

Her hands shook as she wondered if these had been the last words Philip had written before he’d been taken, if they would be the last words he would ever write. Would they ever hold each other again?

_She could not bear this._

She could not live without Philip. The thought made her feel selfish, but she could not survive the loneliness.

It also brought to mind some of their earliest nights in. After losing both her parents before their second anniversary, Theresa had developed a deep fear that some deadly harm would come to her husband, too. He was all she had left, and her terror of being left alone manifested itself in a powerful separation anxiety, frequent nightmares, and absolute panic if she didn’t know his exact location. She’d found herself calling his office multiple times a day, confirming that he hadn’t stepped outside and been hit by a bus, and reacting with near hysteria to a late arrival at home in the evening.

When she finally admitted to the anxiety she’d desperately tried to bury out of a groundless fear that he would leave her, Philip had been horrified to hear that she’d suffered this way for months. He immediately set about helping her work through it, and he’d been infinitely patient and infinitely loving.

“We can’t even go _out_ with me like this!” she’d cried one evening as they’d eaten dinner in a fancy restaurant in Notting Hill. She knew Philip had suggested the outing as a relaxing treat for her, but she’d given in to the trembling in her hands as she’d begun to cut her steak, the words pouring out of her as she explained her fears that they’d have an accident on the way home. “I’m afraid for you even with I’m _with_ you!”

“It’s okay, sweetheart, it’s okay,” Philip said quickly, reaching across to cover her hand with his own. “I understand.”

Her breaths were coming quicker and quicker as a sudden panic began to sweep over her. “I just—I just worry—because what if—” She squeezed her eyes shut, unable to rid herself of the images in her mind. How easy it would be for there to be a road accident that claimed his life but not hers…

“Everything’s all right,” he said, his voice steady and calm. “But do we need to go home?”

“I don’t want to ruin this,” she whispered miserably.

“Oh sweetheart,” he sighed. “You don’t ruin anything. Nothing’s ruined if I still get to be with you. We’ll go home right away if that would make you feel better.” He motioned quickly for their waiter, announcing that there was an emergency and he needed their check and their dinners boxed up _immediately_.

“I’m sorry,” she said as they climbed into their car. “I know you were trying to give us a romantic evening.”

“We are still going to have a romantic evening,” he promised. “But we’ll do it where you’re comfortable. I’m sorry I didn’t understand.”

When they got home, Philip popped their dinners in the oven to warm them and pulled out a chair at their kitchen table, seating her as though he were the maître d’ of their own restaurant. She watched as he gathered the mismatched candles they kept in the cupboard for power outages and arranged them on the table, lighting each of them and then dimming the lights.

“You don’t have to do this,” she said, awash in guilt that he was scrambling to redo the evening when she’d rejected his first offering. “I shouldn’t have made us leave.”

But Philip just smiled. “All I want is a nice dinner with my girl. I don’t care where we have it.”

Her eyes filling with tears at his sweetness, she looked down, and he stepped out of the kitchen momentarily to return with their cassette tape player. “Shall we listen to Elgar’s concertos?” he asked, and she nodded eagerly. He had been one of her favorite composers since her teen years.

“I’ll set the table,” she said, moving to stand, but Philip gently pushed her back down.

“You will do nothing,” he said. “You will sit and relax and enjoy not having to worry about anything.” He dropped a kiss on the top of her head, and she watched him set out dishes, check the temperature of their meal, and plate their dinner, a warm, happy glow settling in her chest.

“Thank you,” she said when they were both seated. “It really is nice just to be home with you—and it’s the only time I’m not worried.”

Philip reached across the table to take her hand. “I do want us to work through this for your own sake, because this isn’t healthy for you to be afraid whenever I’m not home. But there is absolutely nothing wrong with having date night here instead. As you said, it really is nice just to be home together.”

After dinner, he suggested dancing in the front room—“You’re all dressed up, and that shouldn’t go to waste.” Theresa nodded and smiled, made shy as she often was when the gentle kindness she had first fallen in love with was so clearly displayed.

“To Elgar?” she asked as they cleared the table together.

He shook his head. “No, I want to find something better for dancing. Something perfect.”

Perfection, naturally, took time, and she perched on the couch arm while she watched him dig through their music collection, scanning the titles of various cassettes, occasionally pursing his lips or shaking his head. “Ah!” he exclaimed at last. “This is exactly what we need. Ray Charles.” He slipped it into their tape player and reached for her as “Come Rain or Come Shine” began to play.

Theresa let herself melt into his arms, her head on his shoulder as they swayed to the music. _I'm gonna love you like nobody's loved you, come rain or come shine…Happy together, unhappy together, and won’t it be fine?_

She could feel her eyes filling with tears again, and this time she let them flow into his collar. She felt safe here, and calm in spite of her tears, here in her husband’s arms in their little London flat as he whispered how much he loved her, how much he would always love her.

“I promise we’ll get you through this,” he’d said quietly. “I’m going to take care of you, and I’m going to make sure you’re all right again.”

And where was Philip now, she thought, hugging his note close to her chest. Hurt and frightened and in grave danger, and she could do nothing to help him.

\-----

Philip knew he was awake because everything hurt. His eyes were closed—he had only opened them a few times, and the room had begun to tilt, and he had shut them again, another wave of nausea washing over him. Somehow keeping his eyes closed made it all hurt less. Slightly less, at least.

Sometimes he couldn’t remember where he was or how he’d gotten here, and it didn’t seem to matter anyway. What mattered was his arm—the arm that seemed to be dangling in a fire. And his side, which seemed to have a spear stuck through it. And the searing pain in his stomach.

He tried to focus on his breathing: in and out, because that passed the time, and because that ensured his breaths stayed shallow. A normal breath—or God forbid, a deep one on the rare occasions when his body slipped into sleep—would leave him crying out in pain. There was nothing worse for his side and his chest than simply _breathing_.

The worst moments were when he would slowly become conscious of the pain in the rest of his body, the burning in his stagnant muscles, the throbbing between his shoulder blades from the way his arms had been twisted behind his back. He would try to shift slightly on the hard metal chair, seeking the relief of a new position, and a grenade would explode in his abdomen.

Philip hadn’t been fed in days, and water only happened sporadically. Was that why he felt this way?

No, he remembered with a sudden lurch of fear. There’d been a beating, but he couldn’t hold onto the thought long enough to examine how or why.

The one thought that was fixed in his mind was _Theresa_. He could hear her voice, hear her sweetly calling out his name, hear her warm laughter and her elegant southern accent. And he could see her face with its soft beauty and its crystal green eyes, smiling shyly in his memory. Her hands were reaching out for him to take him gently in her arms, and he knew somehow that if Theresa were with him, he would be all right. She would take care of him, and everything would be all right.

Sometimes, the only thing he could remember was how very badly he wanted Theresa.

“Theresa,” he groaned softly, for the hundredth time. There was a slight bit of comfort in hearing her name out loud.

Only this time, there was a response. “I’m getting awfully sick of hearing about that bitch,” a man snarled from close by.

Philip opened his eyes, but before he could focus, a hand struck him hard across the mouth, catching one of his worst bruises and smacking his teeth against the lips and cheeks that had been cut yesterday. He screamed, and received another slap.

“Oh, do shut up and drink your water. Can’t have you dying of thirst before the next livestream for your sweet _Theresa_!”

Were they after Theresa, too? He should have thought of that. He needed to protect her.

“Please,” he croaked. “Please, don’t hurt my wife. Please just…beat me. Not…Theresa.”

The man laughed, a cold, disturbing sound with no humour in it. “Hurting your bitch of a wife is the whole point, asshat. Don’t you think she’s missing you? Think about how much she’s crying. Think about how scared and lonely she feels. Think about how much it hurt her when she watched me hurt you. Think about how broken she’s going to be when she’s left a widow.

“Bitch deserves it, of course, after the fire. Good for her to learn a little empathy, don’t you think?”

And then, still laughing, he grabbed Philip’s chin and began to rapidly pour a glass of water down Philip’s throat, only laughing harder as the older man choked and sputtered and gagged.


	8. Chapter 8

_Did you enjoy our little video chat?_

The text had come through earlier that morning—Wednesday morning, day three. Her fingers had itched to answer, to beg for information and for mercy, but she’d been warned not to, and she understood how pointless it was.

Yet it was followed, a few minutes later, by a far more chilling one: _Philip seems to have really enjoyed it._ Then: _We think we’ll have another round tonight._ And finally: _We’ll be sure to send you a link._

It was all she’d thought about all morning, trembling at the thought of Philip getting another beating, especially in the state his body had to be in now. Would he even _survive_ a second time? Was the plan to kill him at the end of this livestream?

She’d cried and prayed and thrown up the little food she’d choked down for breakfast, but none of it had made any difference. Philip was still missing, and still going to be savagely beaten in a few more hours.

Unless Scotland Yard got there first.

They’d told her they’d isolated the IP address to a particular area of London, and they were systematically searching for a building with a basement window that matched the one behind Philip in the video. But it was a slow search, discretion necessitating small numbers of plainclothes officers. Given infinite time, she did believe they’d get there eventually…but Philip didn’t have infinite time. Even if he survived tonight, there would surely be another beating, and another, until…

Theresa pressed her hand firmly to her mouth, trying to hold back her nausea. _Pay attention to Damian,_ she told herself for the tenth time.

She was trying to distract herself by watching the session of Prime Minister’s Questions that was going on at the moment. After this morning’s texts, she’d known she was in no fit state to work, and certainly not to take questions at the despatch box, and so her office had put out a statement that she had the flu—Scotland Yard not thinking it advisable yet for the public to hear about Philip May’s abduction. And as first secretary of state, Damian Green had been called in at the last minute to face off against Emily Thornberry—it not being the protocol for anyone but the prime minister to debate the leader of the opposition.

The flu hadn’t quite been a lie, Theresa thought ironically. She didn’t think she’d ever felt more ill in her life, and Damian and Emily’s contest was nowhere near interesting enough to distract her.

Oh, where _was_ Scotland Yard? She looked at the time on her iPhone yet again. 12:12. How much longer until Philip would be hurt again???

\-----

_Theresa._ There she was, just in front of him, if he could just reach her…but his arms wouldn’t move, and the effort always sent a shock of pain through his body, along every nerve ending in each of his limbs and fingers and toes. Philip would cry out at the sharpness, and Theresa would disappear, to be replaced by the little dark room.

Why wasn’t she here? And where was _here_?

His mouth was so dry…his tongue felt swollen, fuzzy…

A noise in the distance… _Theresa_ …was he dreaming?

And then he heard shouting: “Police! Police!”


	9. Chapter 9

“I love you, sweetheart,” Theresa whispered again. She knew Philip couldn’t hear her—he was sound asleep from the anesthesia he’d recently come out of, and all the drugs they’d given him—but talking to him made her feel less desperate.

When she’d arrived at the hospital, having rushed there as soon as she’d gotten the news of his rescue, she’d been told that Philip had been put under for an easier and less painful examination, and she’d had the longest wait of her life as she sat alone in a private room, waiting for a report. Eventually, a nurse had returned with the news that Philip had a broken arm, which had been set, two broken ribs, which would heal slowly on their own, and a bruised liver, which would do the same. The latter two injuries would be particularly painful, but there had been no lasting damage done.

Theresa had wept the whole way through this conversation, and she wasn’t sure if her tears had been for how badly he’d been hurt, or out of relief that it wasn’t worse. Perhaps it had been both. She’d tried not to think of how he’d gotten these injuries, but the images of him being brutally kicked and of his arm being crushed seemed to have been burned onto her retinas.

Yet she’d pulled herself together and left for Philip’s private hospital room, where she’d been told he’d likely be sleeping. He was, and she was grateful for it: as soon as she’d laid eyes on him, she’d burst into sobs: his face was a monstrous patchwork of black, blue, purple, and red, with a swollen eye, cheek, and lips and scabbing and stitching all around his mouth. It left him barely recognizable, and she could not bear to see it and could not bear to look away. How many more times had he been hit? How could nothing in his face be broken? How painful would it have been to be struck on such a bruised face, again and again? How much would it all hurt when he woke up?

She didn’t want Philip to see her tears—the last thing she wanted was for him to think he needed to comfort _her_ —and at first she choked on her sobs, afraid to wake him. But It had soon been evident that he was not likely to wake anytime soon, and she let herself cry. How could anyone hurt Philip? How could _she_ have let this happen? He had only been attacked because of her, and for a moment, the guilt almost took her breath away.

Eventually, Theresa had run out of tears and was now merely sitting in silence, holding her husband’s left hand, carefully avoiding the IV needle. (His right arm was wrapped in a cast and tucked in a sling, and she was thankful for the small mercy that Philip was left-handed.) She was frightened to touch him anywhere else and do any further damage, so she restrained herself merely to stroking his hand and his fingers, trying not to look at raw, red skin around his wrist where he’d been bound, or the dark bruise on his forearm. She suspected that had come from the moment she’d watched in the live feed where Philip’s chair had been kicked over backward, his weight landing on the arms tied behind him. Another image she’d never forget.

“I love you,” she whispered again. “And you’re going to be okay. I’m going to take care of you.”

An hour passed, and then another. Nurses came and went, monitoring Philip. Sometimes Theresa cried, sometimes she talked to Philip, sometimes she prayed. She longed to hear his voice, to look into his eyes, but she also dreaded his waking, dreaded the pain he would surely feel.

And then, Philip murmured.

“Philip?”

No response. She held her breath.

And then…very softly, she heard him whispered what sounded like, “Tree.” Then, a moment later, “Theresa.”

“I’m right here, Philip.”

“Theresa.” His eyelids slowly fluttered open. “Theresa?”

“I’m right here,” she repeated, rising from her chair to stand and lean over him so that he could see her without moving. “I’m here, and you’re safe. We’re both safe. Everything is okay now.”

Philip shifted, wincing, and she realized he was struggling to sit up.

“No, sweetheart!” She raised a hand, wanting to press him back down but afraid to injure him. He cried out at his movement, though, and seemed to give up on his own.

“You don’t need to get up, Philip,” she said, her voice gentle but firm. “You’re in hospital, and you’re going to be okay, but you can’t move around like that.”

“But…but I…” Now that he had settled and awakened, his eyes were wild with fear, and somehow that was more painful to see than any of the bruises.

“Sweetheart, you’re safe.” She stroked his left arm. “You are completely safe. The police found you, and you are safe now. There’s nothing to be afraid of. No one is going to hurt you again.”

Philip was quiet for a moment, so she began to speak again. “They brought you to the hospital because you were hurt, but you’re going to be okay. I’ll be right here until you’re ready to go home, and then I’ll take care of you. Okay?”

“Theresa,” he said again. He paused. “Are you really real?” He slowly reached up with his good arm and took hold of her elbow.

“Yes, sweetheart. I’m real. I’m really here with you.”

His hand moved up and down her forearm as though he were testing whether it was solid. “I wasn’t sure if you were real.”

Tears were swimming in her eyes now, and she wasn’t sure she could keep them from falling. “I am. I promise, love. It’s me, and you’re safe. I’m going to take care of you, and nothing bad is going to happen to you again.” She reached up to stroke his hair gently, and her chest ached sharply at the big smile that broke out on his face.

“I wasn’t sure,” he said again, but he kept smiling, and she knew he believed her.

“I love you, sweetheart. I love you, and I’m glad I have you back.”

With a slight wince, Philip stretched his hand up further, his fingers lightly brushing her cheeks this time, and then her chin and her nose.

“Are you still checking to see if it’s me?” she said, smiling back down at him.

“Your face,” he said softly. “I’ve just thought a lot about your face.”

She wasn’t sure she could speak, so she gently caught his hand and brought his palm to her lips for a kiss.

“Sweetheart, how are you feeling? Should I get a nurse now that you’re awake?”

“It hurts,” he said, the sleepiness still in his voice making him sound almost childlike.

“What hurts, love?” She stroked his hair again.

“I do.” _In other words, everything,_ she thought, her eyes welling once more. “Can they give me pain medicine?”

“You’ve already had some, sweetheart, but they can probably give you more. Let me get a nurse.”

“Don’t leave,” he said plaintively. “I don’t want it if you have to go find someone.”

“I can call a nurse from right here, love.” She bent and kissed his forehead. “I'm right here.”


	10. Chapter 10

“I don’t really like this,” Philip said plaintively. “It’s not very good.”

He was looking up at her with the same puppy dog eyes she often got when he was sick and begging for something, and the fact that he felt well enough for this made her heart sing.

“I know, sweetheart.” Theresa dipped the spoon back into the bowl of chicken broth. “But you need to eat to get your strength back up.” After days with nothing but water, Philip had been given nutrients through his IV—enough, apparently, to keep him from being ravenously grateful for any food, she thought wryly—but, after another nap, he’d been encouraged to eat. Of course, he’d wanted her to feed him, and she’d been more than willing.

Philip swallowed the next spoonful she offered and then frowned. “It’s not like your soup at home.”

“I’m relieved to know that my soup is better than hospital food.”

“I’d rather eat something you made.”

“Well,” Theresa said patiently, “I could go home and make you something and bring it back, but then I would have to leave you, and I don’t think you want that.” Talking to a sick or injured Philip, she had learned decades ago, was a bit like talking to a small child. “Here, open up.”

He obediently swallowed another spoonful. “No, I don’t want you to leave. I would rather have you than have better food.”

She chuckled. “That’s very flattering.”

But Philip gave her a serious look and slowly reached for her arm, catching her elbow. “I still feel like I'm dreaming. All I wanted…then…was to be sitting next to you like this.”

“Philip…”

He smiled. “So I’ll eat anything that you’re feeding to me.”

She wasn’t sure she could trust her voice and hid the mist in her eyes by leaning down to kiss his forehead.

“When we get home,” she said when she could speak again, “I’ll make you anything you like to eat. Anything. All your favorites. Absolutely everything you request. I’ll start with roasting a chicken, and then anything else you ask for.”

“I like lamb, too,” he said, accepting another spoonful of soup. “And also goose. And the potatoes you make with the goose fat. Also your spaghetti bolognese. And roast and Yorkshire pudding and steak and kidney pie. And that new chicken curry recipe you tried last week.”

“Do you want all of this at once, sweetheart?” she asked, chuckling.

“No, I have to save some room for dessert. Will you make me a cake?”

“You may have as many cakes as you like.”

“When we get home,” he said after a moment’s pause, “what…will our security be like?”

Her hand faltered on its way back to the soup bowl, and she set the bowl down on the small bedside table, wanting him to feel that his concern had her full attention. “Very vigilant. The house will be closely guarded and very safe. I think we’re both safest when we’re at home and not exposed, and you’ll be at home recovering for quite awhile.”

He seemed to chew on this briefly. “Will security change, much?” His tone was casual, but she sensed it was far from a casual question.

“It’s already changed while you…were gone. I’ve had guards all over me the last few days. Far more than usual, and I think we can expect that to continue.”

Philip gave a small nod, but she sensed he was not convinced, and he did not ask any further questions.

“Are you feeling anxious, sweetheart?” she asked, breaking the tense silence that had descended.

“No,” he said quickly. “No, I’m not anxious.” He paused. “Don’t be worrying about me.”

“I am worried about you. Not about something else happening to you, because I think you’ll be very, very safe at home, but about how you’re feeling.”

“I’m feeling…really happy to be with you.”

Theresa didn’t doubt that, but she also knew now that Philip was more frightened and nervous than she’d realized.

But of course he was frightened. Of course there would be deeper scars than his physical wounds, and she felt an uneasy disquiet at the thought that she did not know how to heal them. How well he had healed her years ago when she’d lost her family…and how little she knew of how to return his kindness.

For now, she would follow his lead and not return to the subject until he did. “I’m really happy to be with you, too,” she told him, reaching out to cover his good hand.

“I just like looking at your face,” he said, his eyes studying it carefully. “Can you scoot closer so I can see it better?”

She smiled at him and shifted her chair. “How’s this?”

“What about my glasses? Do you have my extra glasses?”

“I do.” She reached down for her purse. “Do you want them?”

“Yeah, so I can see you better.”

She took the case out of her purse, removed Philip’s glasses, and carefully, very carefully, settled them onto his bruised face—yet he closed his eyes, a spasm of pain flitting across his features even at the light touch of the frames.

“Does it hurt you to wear these, darling?”

“I’m okay,” he said softly, and she leaned down to kiss his forehead again, thankful there was a non-bruised place to kiss him.

“You tell me if you want those glasses off, all right?” she said as she sat back down.

“I like being able to see you. You’re really beautiful, and I like being able to see you.”

She tried to chuckle, but she knew he could hear the tears lurking in her throat.

“I thought about your face a lot when I…the last few days,” he went on, and she made note that neither of them seemed to have words to describe where he’d been or what had happened. “All the time. I kept imagining your face. I wasn’t sure if I’d see it again, and I just kept thinking about it.”

“Oh, Philip…”

“At the end…I kept thinking I saw you. And I kept trying to reach for you, but…” His voice cracked.

She could not help the tears that were now spilling over, and they only got worse as she tried to imagine the end of that sentence. _But you weren’t really there. But I was tied up like an animal. But it hurt too much to move._

“I wish I could hug you, darling,” he whispered. “I wish I could hold you.”

“I wish that too,” she managed through her tears. “I’d like nothing more than to climb in bed with you and wrap you up in my arms.”

“I hope we can cuddle when I get home,” he said wistfully.

Truthfully, Theresa wasn’t sure how they’d manage that without hurting him, but she was determined to come up with something. “We’ll find a way,” she told him. “We’ll find a way to snuggle that doesn’t hurt you.” After all the times he’d treated her as though she were made of glass, she was more than ready to be careful with him.

“Maybe I could lay with my head in your lap on the couch,” he suggested.

“Yes, maybe we could do that.” It sounded very cozy, and she found herself aching for it as she spoke the words.

After a moment’s silence, he said simply, “Everything really hurts.”

Her heart broke again, and she gently stroked her hand over his hair. “I know, sweetheart, and I hate that. You’re going to get better, but it may take awhile. But I’m going to take care of you every step of the way.”

“Why does my back hurt? I don’t think anything would have happened to my back, but it hurts a lot.”

“Nothing did happen, I don’t think,” she said, mentally running over the report the nurse had given her. “I suspect that’s just from not moving for so long.” _From being tied to a metal chair._ “But we can ask.”

“No, that makes sense. My arms…were tied behind me.” He paused. “Is it supposed to hurt to breathe?”

“I’m afraid so, sweetheart. You’ve got two broken ribs.”

“What happened in my stomach? It’s like…it’s like there’s a knife there.”

“Your liver was badly bruised. It’s not dangerous, but they did say it would be painful while it heals.”

“My liver?” He was confused, she thought, but then a shadow seemed to pass over his face. “Oh. I…know how that happened.”

She knew, too, and she suppressed a shiver as she remembered Philip lying on the ground during the live feed, as he was kicked again and again with a steel-tipped boot.

“That was the worst part, I think.” His hand began to tremble slightly, and she wrapped it in her own. “The…kicking.” He drew a shaky breath and then whimpered—she supposed at the pain in his ribs. His hand was stiff and tense, and it looked as though the rest of his body had followed, his eyes wider, alert, and scanning the room.

“Philip,” she said firmly, “you are safe. You’re in hospital, I am here, and no one is going to hurt you again.”

“Are you sure we’re safe?” he blurted out.

“I’m very sure. Very, very sure.”

“What about—is there security here? Are we alone?”

“We are not alone, and there is security here. You have guards standing right outside your door. You are perfectly safe.” _How could she make him believe her?_ She was unsettled at the thought that she most probably could not.

“That’s good.”

“Yes, that is good,” she agreed, studying his face for signs that he was truly calming. His hand was slowly relaxing in her own.

“Did they catch the people who…”

“Yes, they did. The people who hurt you are behind bars, and they are never going to hurt you again.” And she was sure of that, because if Philip’s kidnappers ever got out of prison, she would strangle them with her bare hands.

She wondered if he would ask her why he’d been taken, what the motive had been, but he did not. She did know: she’d not been interested in a full police report yet—her only concern had been Philip’s state—but she’d been told that it had somehow been intended as a punishment for her for the fire at Grenfell, an attempt to hurt her with the suffering and death of a loved one. Of course, it had clearly been mixed with a degree of insanity and sociopathy as well, and she was trying not to think of it. It didn’t matter. What mattered was Philip.

Theresa did not think hearing this information would necessarily frighten or upset him any worse, but she had resolved to only give him information that he asked for. If he was ready to know something, he would ask.

“Would you like some more pain medicine, sweetheart?” she asked him now. “You’re nearly due, and it sounds like you’re hurting.”

“No…I don’t think I want more drugs.”

Philip was _not_ ready to be off the meds, she did not think. “Do they not help? Should we ask for something else?”

“They just…make me sleepy. Last time they gave me some, I fell asleep.”

“Yes, pain meds do do that. But sleep is good for you right now. You need sleep in order to heal. It’s okay for you to sleep a lot.”

He didn’t respond, and an awful thought occurred to her. “Do you dream about what happened? Are you worried about having nightmares?”

“No, no,” he said. “No nightmares. I’d just…rather not sleep so much.”

“Will you tell me why not?” she asked gently. This was a man who otherwise loved to nap.

“I just…like to know what’s going on.”

Theresa swallowed. He was afraid to close his eyes, afraid to not be alert. Afraid he’d be attacked or taken again in his sleep.

“Sweetheart, there are guards outside, and they are keeping a very, very close eye on everything. The whole hospital has been secured. You’re extremely safe, and it’s safe for you to sleep. I’ll be here, too, watching over you.”

“You won’t want to go home?”

“Of course not! I’m not going to leave your side. Not when I’ve longed to see you for days.”

“Are you really sure you’ll stay if I’m asleep?”

She smiled, trying to mask the aching in her chest at his fear. “I’m really sure, darling. I promise I won’t leave. I’ll be right here while you rest. I won’t take my eyes off you for a second.”

He gave her a hesitant smile in return. “Okay. If you’re sure.”

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.” She gave him another forehead kiss. “Now let’s get you some medicine.”


	11. Chapter 11

They were home. Home at last, home together, and Theresa was working on a dinner of roast chicken in the No. 10 kitchen—Maidenhead having been determined unsuitable for recovery because of its stairs. It was such a simple act, she thought as she mashed the accompanying potatoes while the chicken cooled, yet she could not think of anything more extraordinary, anything that could make her happier, than standing in her kitchen, making a favorite meal for her husband, who was safely ensconced in the nest she’d made him in one of the most comfortable chairs in the sitting room.

Safe. Philip was safe. And as comfortable as she could make him.

At least, she thought he was comfortable…the hesitant step she suddenly heard behind her suggested otherwise.

“Philip!” She whirled around, spotting a guilty-looking Philip, who had slowly shuffled into the kitchen, still clutching the large pillow he’d been taught to hold against his chest. “You are not supposed to be in here!”

“You’re in here,” he said plaintively, as though this made a difference.

“ _I_ do not have multiple broken bones, and it doesn’t hurt me to move around. You, on the other hand, are supposed to be resting. Recuperating. Staying on the couch where you’re comfortable.”

“But I’d rather be where I can see you. I like being close to you.”

Theresa felt that familiar tightness in her chest, and she could not keep her voice from softening. “Well, we’ll just have to make you a nest in here, too.” She attempted a stern look. “I won’t have you standing or sitting on a hard kitchen chair right now. You wait right here.”

She left him and the potatoes for the sitting room, where she began to drag another armchair slowly across the floor, heading for the kitchen.

“Will you let me help?” he asked hesitantly as she rounded the corner with the chair, breathing hard with the effort.

With broken ribs, internal bruising, and his arm in a sling? “I’m not going to dignify that with a response.”

“I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

She ignored him, slowly maneuvering the chair into place. He’d be near enough to watch her work, but not in the way as she moved back and forth between the oven and the counter and the table. “Here we are…you’ll be much more comfortable sitting here,” she told him, fluffing the pillow she’d settled on the chair for him to rest against.

Philip shuffled to the chair, and she braced her arm behind his shoulders, trying to help support him as he lowered himself. With one arm in a cast and the other clutching his pillow, he could only use his legs to sit down—and changing positions was already a slow, agonizing process.

“Slowly,” she reminded him as he began to sink down. “Keep it slow…you’re almost there…” She could feel the tension in his body, and he was squeezing his eyes shut and gritting his teeth. This was hurting him…she _knew_ it was hurting him, hurting him badly.

She also knew he wasn’t going to cry out: in a reverse from his usual tendency to treat a hangnail as a life-threatening injury that deserved as much attention as possible, Philip had been attempting to play down his pain since they’d arrived home yesterday. She suspected his goal was to keep her from feeling any worse than she already did, but it wasn’t working: she only felt guiltier at the thought that her husband was further burdened with the need to protect her feelings.

“It’s okay, sweetheart. You don’t have to hide how much this hurts.”

A desperate groan escaped him as he finally collapsed into the chair, his eyes still closed as he rested his head against its back, trying to catch his breath.

“Oh, duck,” she said, feeling her own eyes fill as she stroked his hair. “I know that hurt you.”

Philip finally opened his eyes, and her chest ached at the pain in them. “Not as bad as getting up on my own did,” he breathed.

“And that is why I want you to call for me before you try to move.”

He nodded.

Theresa bent and kissed his forehead. “I also don’t want you to try to hide your pain,” she went on, resting her hand on his cheek. “You are allowed to moan and groan and holler as much as you want.” He didn’t respond to that, but she gave him another kiss. “I’ll get you a tray so you can eat right here without having to move again. How does that sound?”

“It sounds good as long as you’re here with me.”

She gave him a watery smile. “Of course I will be, sweetheart.”

Blinking back her tears, Theresa turned back to the potatoes, giving them a final few spins in the mixer. “The roast smells really good,” she heard Philip say softly, and the quiet happiness in his voice made her eyes fill again. She was so glad he was back, and so worried about the pain, and so sorry this had happened, and so grateful to have him nearby, and still so frightened at the thought that she’d almost lost him, and it was all suddenly on top of her. She merely nodded in reply, determined not to look at him yet.

“I’ve been looking forward to this meal since the hospital,” he went on, and she nodded again. He paused. “Sweetheart, are you okay?”

“Of course I’m okay,” she said, her voice cracking. She bit her lip and forced herself to regain control.

“Theresa—”

“This is almost ready. Let me get you a tray.” She moved away to rummage through the cupboard, locating one of the breakfast trays they sometimes used on special occasions—usually, she thought with a catch in her throat, it was Philip bringing breakfast to her—and pointedly making too much noise for either of them to talk over. She then dug for the carving knife in a drawer and cut several slices off the roast, busily making plates for both of them while she felt Philip’s eyes on her. She cut his meat into bite-sized pieces as well, and buttered his roll, and tried to think if there was anything else he would struggle to do one-handed.

“Is this comfortable?” she asked as she settled the tray across his lap. He nodded. “Do you need more of anything? I can get you more—”

“It’s perfect,” he said. “All of this is perfect.”

Theresa hovered for a long second, hesitant to sit down. “You’ll tell me if there’s anything more you need? Anything else you want?” she said, finally taking a seat near him at the edge of the table.

“I want you to enjoy your own dinner,” he said softly. “I want you to sit down and rest and not fuss over me.” That was very Philip, and she gave him a small smile.

“I worried about you a lot,” he said a moment later. “While I was gone.”

“You didn’t need to worry about me. I wasn’t the one…I was safe,” she amended, still not able to give voice to what had happened.

“I didn’t know that at first,” he said, and she looked up, surprised. “When I first woke up there, I was afraid they’d taken you, too—because why would they want me and not the prime minister? I was so afraid you’d been hurt, and then I realized that you’d be without insulin…and I just panicked. I remember begging them to make sure you had insulin, or to just let you go. Because I was so frightened to think—”

“But Philip, I was fine. And you were…” She trailed off, imagining her husband alone and frightened and beaten and hungry and tied to a chair. _And wanting to be sure she wasn’t being deprived of insulin._

“I just didn’t want anything to happen to you,” Philip said quietly, and she dropped her eyes, desperate to keep her tears from falling.

“Did they tell you they didn’t have me?”

“Yes…they said…that wasn’t the point.”

No, the point had been to hurt her in the worst way possible—by hurting Philip. Theresa pushed a clump of potatoes around on her plate, not sure what to say or feel.

“But then I just worried about how you were feeling. And how frightened you must be.”

She paused, trying to hold her voice steady. “I was frightened until I was in the same room with you at the hospital,” she finally said. “Because I wanted you to be okay, and I was so worried about how hurt you’d be.”

“But were you okay while I was...gone? I hated thinking about you being upset and scared and alone when I couldn’t comfort you.”

This was both a ridiculous thing for him to think _while being beaten and held captive_ , as well as an overwhelmingly sweet one—and it could not have been more authentically Philip.

It also made her lose the battle against her tears.

_”Philip,”_ she croaked, her hand going to her mouth in a failed attempt to hold back a sob.

“Oh, love.” He reached out his good arm for her, and she stood and moved hurriedly to his side, kneeling down by his chair.

“I missed you so much,” he whispered, his thumb wiping at her tears before his hand came to rest on her cheek. “And I was so afraid for you.”

They were her own sentiments exactly, and she squeezed his hand before bringing it to her lips for a kiss. “We’re a mess,” she said, trying to turn a sob into a laugh. Wiping her eyes, she stood and tenderly kissed his bald spot. “But I love you.”

Dinner was finished mostly in silence, but with many tearful glances, many reaches for the other’s hand, many soft pats on a leg or an arm. There was, she thought, so much more to be said, but it could all be said later, when everything wasn’t so _raw_. For now, she was happy just to look at him, just to touch him, just to be near him.

“Do you want me to help you move back to watch some more TV?” she asked later as she carried their finished plates to the sink.

Philip seemed to consider. “Maybe we could just go to bed after you finish the dishes? I’m sleepy, and I don’t want to move twice?”

She nodded, glad he wanted to rest. “Of course. There’s no reason you need to stay up if you’re tired.”

“If you’re not ready for bed, though, I’ll stay up with you,” he said quickly, and she realized her mistake: she’d always intended to lie down with him, but by only saying _you_ , he had immediately worried that she’d be settling him in bed and then leaving the room. And she’d known since the hospital that Philip had a terror of sleeping alone.

“No, no,” she said gently. “I’m ready whenever you are. I’ll come and lie down next to you.”

“Could we snuggle somehow?”

Theresa honestly could not imagine how they would do that in a way that didn’t cause pain somewhere in his broken body, but she also could not bring herself to say no to the pleading look in her husband’s eyes. “We will find a way,” she promised. “I’ll make sure you’re both cuddled and comfortable.” She paused, thinking of the difficulty of getting him into their bedroom. “Let’s give you a pain pill now so it has some time to work before bed.”

When she’d finished rinsing their plates and loading the dishwasher, she helped him slowly out of his chair—her heart breaking yet again, because this was just as painful as sitting down before the meal had been. And then there was the long, slow walk back to their bedroom. The No. 10 flat seemed to have tripled in size since Philip had come home.

The worst of it was that there was nothing she could do to help: his legs were fine, and it wasn’t walking, exactly, that he struggled with. It was the mere act of moving at all, of exerting himself, of breathing and jostling his ribs. She was left to hover alongside Philip, desperate to reach out to him but not wanting to jar him as he slowly, slowly shuffled down the hall, his pillow clutched to his chest and his brow furrowed in pain.

He paused twice to rest, and each time she took the opportunity to kiss his cheek. “You’re doing really well, sweetheart,” she said, her own voice thick. “Really well.”

At last he made it to their room, and she slowly eased him on to the side of their bed, just as she had seated him in the kitchen, Philip hissing in pain and grabbing for her hand as soon as he was down. She let him squeeze it hard, his eyes shut, as she kissed his forehead again.

“We’ll just wait until you’re ready, duck,” she told him gently. “You can take a little break here before we lay you down.” She knew getting him into a flat position was going to be the hardest part of all, and she absolutely dreaded it.

He relaxed his grip on her hand, but he was still clutching it tightly as he opened his eyes. “I think I’m ready. I’d rather just have it over with.”

She wasn’t sure _she_ was ready. “All right,” she said, swallowing hard. “Can you turn as I lift your legs?” He nodded. “I want you to tell me if I need to stop, okay?” He nodded again.

Steeling herself, Theresa bent and slipped her arm beneath his calves and slowly began to raise his legs, stopping when she heard him cry out.

“It’s not you,” he said immediately. “It’s—the having to turn. Keep going.”

It was the last thing she wanted to do, but she forced herself to lift his legs the rest of the way onto the bed, feeling a knife in her own side as he yelped again. Finally he was turned with his legs stretched out on the bed in front of him, and she wanted to breathe a sigh of relief…but he wasn’t down yet.

“Can you lay me down now?” he asked, his voice small.

She caressed his cheek. “Are you sure you’re ready?”

“I just want this to be over,” he said, looking up at her with pitiful eyes. “I just want to be still.”

Theresa couldn’t help but kiss him again. “All right, darling. We’ll get this over and you can be still. You let me do all the work this time—just lean back against my arms, and I’ll lower you. And you tell me if we need to stop or go slower, okay?”

“Okay. I might…make noise, but that doesn’t mean you have to stop. I want to be down, and I want you to keep going.”

“You make all the noise you want,” she said as she braced her arms against his back. Feeling him lean against her, she slowly began to lower him. He hollered as she did so, and every nerve ending in her body screamed at her to stop moving him.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart! I’m so sorry!” Yet she wasn’t sure he could hear her—she wasn’t sure he could process anything but the pain.

After what seemed like an eternity, she had him resting flat. “I’m so sorry that hurt you,” she repeated as she stroked his hair. “I’m so sorry.”

Philip’s eyelids fluttered open. “That’s okay,” he murmured. “It’s not your fault.”

Well, that was debatable, but she wouldn’t burden him with her guilt. “Would you like a pillow under your arm, like in the hospital?” He’d come to find it comfortable when lying down to have his broken arm raised up.

“That would be nice,” he said, and she lifted it gently onto another pillow. “It does hurt, but not like my ribs.”

“No, I don’t imagine anything’s as bad as the ribs. You move them every time you breathe.” He made an affirmative noise, and she kissed his forehead. “Now, how about I get you some ice for them?”

His eyes darkened with fear. “Are you going to leave? I thought we were going to bed.”

She continued stroking his hair. “I won’t leave for long. I just thought I might pop to the kitchen and get you some ice. But I’ll only be gone a couple minutes.”

“I mean, it’s okay if you do go,” he said, the lie obvious in the way he wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I’m okay. I don’t mind.”

“Well, I mind,” she told him—and it was quite true. Philip’s own fears aside, she simply didn’t want him out of her sight. She smiled down at him, and he managed a small smile back.

Theresa returned quickly, the ice pack wrapped in a tea towel. “I’ll just get into my pajamas, and then we’ll get this on your side,” she told him, snatching her night clothes from under her own pillow.

“Can you do that where I can see you?” he asked.

“Do what where you can see me?”

“Change clothes! It’s the most action I’m going to get for weeks.”

“Philip,” she said, her quick movement into his line of sight betraying her firm tone, “this is a sickroom, not a strip club.” Yet her heart was singing at the sign that he felt well enough to think in these terms.

He smiled sheepishly as she undressed, and she took her time about it, pleased to see him happy. “You really are very beautiful,” he said as she finally slipped her pajamas on.

“You’re very sweet,” she said, coming to give him another kiss on the forehead. “Now, you tell me if anything hurts you.”

He nodded, and, ice pack in hand, she climbed carefully, delicately, slowly into their bed, trying to keep the mattress as still as possible. Then she lay down alongside him, stretching out on her side and fitting her body against his uninjured left side.

“Everything okay so far?” she asked, and he nodded. With the utmost care, she stretched her right arm across his chest to hold the ice ever-so-gently against his cracked ribs. “Is this all right? Am I pressing too hard?”

“No,” he said with a soft sigh. “It’s perfect. The cold feels good.”

“Good,” she said, kissing his cheek. “I’ll hold it there until you fall asleep.” The thought made her suddenly, strangely emotional, and for a moment she wasn’t sure why. And then she remembered: how many times had Philip snuggled a younger her in their bed, his arm wrapped around her and his hand holding a hot water bottle in place against her stomach? More times than she could count, and there had simply been nothing in the world more comforting than relaxing against her husband, so taken care of that she hadn’t even had to hold her own water bottle.

Theresa swallowed, forcing her mind to return to the present, and snaked her left arm up underneath her pillow, reaching up to slowly twirl her fingers through Philip’s remaining hair. He’d always loved having his hair played with.

She watched as he closed his eyes. “That feels really nice, too.”

“I’m glad, sweetheart.” She’d do anything she could think of that might give Philip a bit of comfort.

“I just wish I could actually hold you.”

“I’m holding _you_ ,” she said, giving him another kiss. “That’s all we need for now.”


End file.
